Casper Ruud Targets 2025 ATP Finals: 'All or Nothing at This Point'

A Season of Highs and Lows for Ruud

Indeed, sporadic encouraging results punctuated by early Grand Slam exits and puzzling periods of premature tournament losses have been a defining hallmark of a frustrating 2025 campaign for a player of Ruud's class and calibre.

It is indicative of the Norwegian's humility and understanding of his own game, however, that he has been the first person to point this out.

"It was a memorable season because of the Madrid title, but I am not sitting here being super satisfied overall," Ruud told Bolavip from this week's indoor ATP 250 event in Stockholm.

"There were too many early losses in tournaments, but I try to learn from those losses," he continued.

"It has been a mixture of highs and lows. This is the first season where I have experienced being out a few weeks in a row with my knee. That was a new challenge, obviously.

"Like I said, it will be memorable because I won the biggest title in my career this year, and I was playing some really good tennis during that time."

Race to the ATP Finals

As the long and arduous ATP calendar arrives at the indoor hard-court European swing for the autumn months, the finish line at the end of another taxing season moves into focus. With that comes one final opportunity for a late rankings push ahead of the off-season.

For the ATP's leading players, that also comes with the added impetus of potentially sealing a spot in the season-ending ATP Finals.

Currently 12th in the rankings, the odds are against Ruud clinching one of the last few places in Turin. He will have to perform impeccably for the remainder of the year to have a chance of sneaking into one of the coveted top eight qualification positions.

It is a narrowly open door, but one that is still ajar. And for Ruud, that possibility is enough to motivate him for one final push as he seeks to find the sort of form that led him to a career-high ranking of No. 2 in the world a little over three years ago.

"All or Nothing at This Point"

Without the carrot of an ATP Finals berth or a top-10 rankings finish, Ruud feels there would be little for him to aim for.

"If you are finishing 11 or 15, I mean, what is going to make the difference? Nothing, in my opinion, so it is kind of all or nothing at this point. I am going to try to use that as a motivation and give it a final push," Ruud explains.

"The season is not over yet, and I hope I can finish it strong and maybe climb my way towards having a chance to reach the ATP Finals. But it is going to be really tough, so I am just trying to play well these last three weeks, and then we will see after Paris."

2025 has not been a vintage season for Ruud. There has been far too much inconsistency. And three second-round Grand Slam exits (he missed Wimbledon entirely) is a far cry from the three major finals he reached in 12 months between June of 2022 and 2023, a period during which he scaled close to the highest heights of the ATP rankings.

Yet Ruud will end his season as a Masters 1000 champion - something he could not say this time last year, or indeed at any other point in his career.

That Madrid Open victory will live long in the memory. But it is his setbacks that the Norwegian should turn his attention to.

If Ruud can harness the disappointment of his recent limitations and use it as motivation to rediscover his best form, then that momentum would likely carry through into the new year and could transform his prospects for 2026 into something far more compelling than this year's campaign.

Perhaps a top-10 finish and a spot at the ATP Finals aren't the only motivators after all. Here's to finishing on a high.